After months of negotiations, Greater Rockford Airport Authority and Rock Valley board members announced today that they have worked out terms of a ground lease that would allow the college to build a larger classroom facility for its aviation maintenance program at the airport.

Rock Valley pledged last summer to expand the program to serve a career education partnership with high schools in the region.

Negotiations were slow to start, but took on renewed urgency last fall when airport leaders acknowledged the program expansion would aid its efforts to recruit a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility, commonly called an MRO - a mammoth jet service and repair center that could employ hundreds of mechanics.

To that end, the airport would build the college a 40,000-square-foot classroom building to replace the 9,800-square-foot Falcon Road Center it leases from the airport. The college would sign a 20-year ground lease, with four 10-year renewal options, for the larger facility. The airport would provide exterior property management at the site.

Rock Valley's two-year program produces fewer than 50 graduates a year. Airport officials want 150 graduates annually within three years to serve the potential MRO.

Rock Valley will also broaden its curriculum to include avionics, composites and nondestructive testing to support careers in the aeronautics industry.